


Drifting

by injeong



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Fluff, Ghost Drifting, I don't know how to put tags, It says major character death because Kise is a ghost, Kaijo - Freeform, KiKasa - Freeform, Kise doesn't go to Kaijo in this one, Kise is ghost, M/M, Nobody else actually dies don't worry, Sort Of, Supernatural - Freeform, Supernatural Elements, im not going to put any spoilers in here hehehe, kasakise - Freeform, kuroko no basuke - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 20:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 14,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14433531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injeong/pseuds/injeong
Summary: Kise Ryouta is a ghost who remembers his name, the death, and pretty much nothing else.It's a solitary, slightly depressing life being a ghost, even if he can float upside down and go through walls and watch movies without having to buy tickets.But everything changes when Kasamatsu Yukio moves into the apartment that he's haunting.





	1. Chapter 1

So. There's a ghost in Kasamatsu's apartment and he's pretty sure of it.

He doesn't really believe in ghosts and the supernatural, and he was never scared by it growing up because he just didn't think it possible - but there really is no other explanation, now.

Either there's a ghost, or his life is being controlled out by puppeteers who move his stuff around with invisible strings almost every minute of the day.

But a ghost isn't so bad, he thinks, spinning his pen in his fingers as he tries to concentrate on his essay. He's glad that his ghost isn't like the evil ghosts in films that strangle people and make them throw themselves into the road or writes messages in blood on the mirror. This ghost just moves things around in his kitchen, plays with his basketball sometimes, and even levitates his bag upstairs into his room when it's particularly heavy.

Of course, when he tried to tell Moriyama, the boy had just looked at him quizzically and Kasamatsu found himself unable to prove the presence of the friendly ghost when he dragged him over to his house. (Maybe the ghost is shy.) Moriyama had been willing to accept it as a one-time thing, though, and didn't ask. Most of the time.

He does want to learn more about the ghost, but he's never really gotten around to attempting to talk to it. Mainly because it was probably stupid, and he wasn't even sure if he would be able to hear the ghost's replies anyway.

(But there were ways that they could be able to communicate, he thinks privately. After all, the ghost could bang around the rooms with his basketball and carry bags. There shouldn't be any reason why it couldn't move a pen on paper and write down what it wants to say.)

But it is a little irritating, not knowing the ghost's gender. It seems a little rude to keep calling the ghost "it". He doesn't know its age, either. Or its name.

If the ghost even remembers his name.

Do ghosts not have genders? Maybe a spirit like this one is just a small consciousness, that genders and age exists only in physical bodies.

Kasamatsu remembers that he's supposed to be writing his essay, and lowers his head, rereading what he's written so far as the sounds of a basketball bouncing off the wall drifts into his room, muffled by the walls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
Kise has been in his "haunting" business for a while. He's lost track of the days, or maybe months and years, which he doesn't really care about, because once you're dead it doesn't really matter how long you've been dead for. He figures that it doesn't really matter counting, because he could easily ghost over to a newsagent's and check the year, then count down the years from his death year.

He still remembers his death, and he remembers the date, and he remembers his name.

He doesn't remember much else. But he's fine with that as well, because remembering things often brought people pain. He reckons that some ghosts must remember their past lives, though, because sometimes when he's wandering around the city to find new places to haunt, he'd see other ghostly figures drifting in doorways or mingling with the crowd with sad, depressing expressions on their faces. (Or maybe that's because they just don't like being dead. Kise is fine with being dead, though. It doesn't hurt, he can go anywhere he wants, he can still touch and move certain things if he concentrates hard enough. The only downside it that it gets more than a little lonely sometimes. He wonders why he has been left behind, stuck between the kingdoms of life and death. Not everyone must become a ghost when they die, because if they did, he's pretty sure there would be several million billion zillion dead ghosts in Japan alone, not taking into account the rest of the planet. There are always more dead people than living ones, because you don't stop being dead but you can stop living.)

Kise doesn't like overthinking things because it makes his brain (do ghosts still have organs?) hurt and depressing thoughts make him sad. So he just enjoys floating through walls and knocking things over, scaring people.

He tries to be nice most the time, but everyone seems to get scared and run away anyway.

Humans have always been scared of things they don't know about, things that they can't explain. Maybe it's because unknown things could potentially kill them, and they want to keep living? But being in a ghostly limbo isn't exactly bad.

Kise tried talking to another of his ghostly allies once. But the man had just looked at him sadly and drifted away, leaving Kise with a slightly upsetting feeling. None of the ghosts want to talk. He doesn't know whether they _can_ talk. He can hear himself when he talks. But maybe nobody else can hear him.

That's also a depressing thought.

Depressing thoughts come so much more easily when you're dead, he thinks glumly, floating upside down in the middle of the street. (It's a trick that he's recently learned, and his early attempts were rather unattractive and didn't work out very well, but he's got the hang of it now.)

Kise had also tried pretending that he was still alive. He feels like he's the same age that he was when he died - he can't remember exactly, but he was about sixteen, seventeen? So he ghosts off to the nearest high school, sits in lessons and tries to learn from the teacher, floats through the canteen during lunch (he can't pick up food and eat it, which is upsetting because he really wants to eat food again), and even during PE, he knocks down the balls that have gotten stuck in trees, speed-ghosts along the running track with the other students, and steals a basketball from the storage cupboard and dribbles around, shooting hoops with a familiarity that must mean that he played basketball before he died. (Every time someone comes in, he has to stop and drop the basketball so that it looks like it had been there for ages. The rumors that the gyms were haunted that started circulating the school after he had been "attending" for a few weeks makes him proud in a way that only a ghost can feel.)

But it never _really_ works.

Being a ghost is fun, but it's a shallow sort of fun when it ends. Kise still feels a little bit empty, and eventually stops drifting to the school gate every morning.

He feels like he's _missing_ something.

He knows he doesn't have many things now that he's dead, but he feels like he's missing something.

Kise takes up haunting an apartment close by to the school (he _has_ gotten attached to the school, he won't deny it) but the residents stream out one after the other every time he interacts with them. It's funny at first, but then gets a little boring and lonely.

Then one day, a week after the previous resident had run screaming from the building and moved away, a dark haired boy with steel-grey eyes and the name of Kasamatsu Yukio moved in.


	2. Two

Kasamatsu _does_ sometimes find it slightly unnerving, knowing that there is a supernatural being floating around his house that he can't see.

Like - how does he know that the ghost doesn't hang around the bathroom when he's doing a shower? Does the ghost watch him when he sleeps or something?

He really hopes the ghost is a mature being.

Most the time, though, it's like having an extremely shy roommate who never shows his face but leaves his mark around. Again, it's not that bad.

But Kasamatsu _is_ really curious, so eventually he gathers up the courage, tells himself that it's only a ghost and he really shouldn't be embarrassed, and takes a stray whiteboard pen and after spending ten minutes rummaging around his room to see whether he had a mini-whiteboard or not, he writes,

"Are you a ghost?"

Then he draws two boxes, writing "Yes" next to one and "No" next to the other. As soon as he places it on his desk before he goes to school, he feels another wave of embarrassment, but he steels himself and grabs his bag, walking out of the door.

(Since the ghost seemed to enjoy playing with his basketball, Kasamatsu had deliberately left the basketball right next to the whiteboard and the pen, just in case the ghost would miss it. He hopes that it _is_ a ghost, because he doesn't know much else about supernatural beings and he's still under the impression that apart from a few ghosts, most supernatural beings - if they even exist at all - are probably hostile, and Kasamatsu doesn't want to be killed by an angered demon or something. He tells himself that if it was hostile, then he'd probably already know by now, but still.)

Kasamatsu manages to dislodge the supernatural from his mind when he reaches the school gates and Moriyama immediately begins telling him some story about how he bumped into a pretty girl on the way to school.

 

 

  
Kise Ryouta watches the black haired boy leave, hovering around the apartment door before he floats through the door back into the apartment. He doesn't feel like going outside, today, but he quickly gets bored of going through the kitchen fridge and floats over to where he knows the resident's bedroom is.

It's neat and organized, as usual (Kise has a distinct feeling that when he was alive, his room was _never_ this tidy) but what catches his eye when he drifts over to get the basketball is a mini-whiteboard on the desk. Kise blinks at the words written on it, then his eyes move to the whiteboard marker lying besides it, and he laughs.

It's actually kind of cute.

Kise reaches for the pen, and it takes several attempts before he manages to solidify himself enough to grip the lid and pull it off. (The boy had left the lid slightly loose. How considerate.) Even as he's moving closer, he can feel his concentration breaking, so he makes a quick squiggly tick inside the box next to "Yes" and since he has a little bit of strength left, he draws a smiley emoticon next to it before the pen drops from his transparent hold and lands on the floor. Kise manages to nudge the lid onto the pen (it's too much effort to do the complicated, fiddly maneuvers of picking up the pen and replacing it onto the desk, so he leaves it on the floor, capped safely) and drifts out again, and he feels a rare excitement (was it excitement? Or just mere curiosity?) as he waits for the school day to finish.

But the thing about being a ghost is that he has a lot of time to think. And Kise doesn't like overthinking but sometimes he has nothing to do and he literally cannot help but _think_.

And most of the time when he overthinks, he overthinks about his past life. Who he was before.

He remembers his name, and he's tried to enter it into search engines on computers before, but they never work. It could be because he's a ghost - technology just never seems to work properly when he tries. (Which is disappointing, but at least he can still watch TV and films from a distance if it was someone else who had turned it on.) When he concentrates and tries to dig up a memory, any memory, from his past that isn't his own death, he can only see small flashes of colour, a mix of voices merging into one another as barely-there whispers in the back of his mind, and nothing else.

He does know that he played basketball, though.

Apart from that, he knows nothing. He can't remember what he looks like - he doesn't appear on mirrors, which he's always found disappointing because A) it would give a much wider range of ghostly pranks to play on people and B) he just wants to know what he looks like.

The only event he can remember clearly - or somewhat clearly - is his death. And naturally, he doesn't like reminiscing about his own death.

It was a pretty painful one, after all. So Kise tries not to think, and watches the humans on the street walk past each other in a bustle of life as the sun moves across the sky and the shadows move across the ground, and he plays a game where he guesses whether the next person to cross the street will be male or female, young or old. (It's a boring game, but it's _something_.) He plays the game until he finally sees a certain person heading towards the apartment.

Kise follows him as he unlocks the door, tossing his keys onto the small table, trudges through the corridor into his bedroom, and spots the mini-whiteboard on the table.


	3. Three

As soon as Kasamatsu walks into his apartment, he heads immediately for his room. He doesn't know why he's so excited (actually, he knows why he's excited but he doesn't know why he, of all people, would be this excited over something like this). He dumps his bag on his bed to unpack later, and when he turns around, he spots the pen lying on the floor and feels another, more intense twinge of anticipation.

(Kasamatsu really hopes that it was the ghost who moved the pen and not a robber who might have broken into his apartment whilst he was at school.)

His worries are banished, however, because right after he notices that the basketball is missing, he sees the wobbly cross on the whiteboard and the smiley emoticon drawn next to it.

Kasamatsu has no idea why he feels so relieved. Most people would freak out and move away immediately if there was a ghost living in their apartment (did ghosts live anywhere? Kasamatsu had assumed that they were free to go where they wanted, being dead and all) but to him, a ghost's presence is just there. It's not threatening, or frightening in any way - despite all the times during the first few days after he had moved in when he was woken up in the middle of the night because of something moving in the hallway - and as of now, it hasn't been an overwhelmingly happy thing either.

Replacing the pen on the desk next to the whiteboard, Kasamatsu briefly wonders if he could ask the ghost of his name next. Ghosts would probably remember their names, right? Or maybe they wouldn't. After a second thought, Kasamatsu decides that asking for their name so early on would be a little too personal (and if he was a ghost who was dead, he wouldn't really want any reminder that he had died, or of his past life at all) and underneath the smiley emoticon, Kasamatsu simply draws ♂ and ♀ next to two more boxes, and hopes that the ghost will know the meaning of the two symbols. (After all, Hayakawa still had trouble remembering what they meant and it had caused him a great deal of embarrassment at social gatherings with both genders.)

Kasamatsu jumps when the door, which had been open since he came in, closes silently. He sees the handle go down, like an invisible force - an invisible hand - had closed it.

(It occurs to him that maybe the ghost is playing a prank on him and opening and closing the door from the outside to trick him into thinking that he is in a room with the ghost, but Kasamatsu dismisses the thought.) He looks at the door - tries to see something, anything, but as usual, there is no indication at all that there is anything there.

Eventually, he tells himself. One day.

Kasamatsu raises his gaze to where he guesses the eye level of the ghost would be, and says, "Hello."

 

 

 

Kise is springing along a little because he is excited - this is the first time that a human has not run away shrieking because of him, and this is the first time that a human has actually initiated contact! This definitely counts as contact. Kise wonders whether he should try again to tell someone else, another ghost, but then remembers the sad, lost looks on the faces of all the other silent ghostly figures that he sees and decides, maybe later.

He watches as the boy swings his bag onto his bed with an easy motion (Kise tries to recall how it felt to handle and touch objects with such ease, so naturally) and stops, looking down. He's seen the pen, and Kise is dancing around the room with anticipation as the look on the boy's face changes a little, into something that Kise is relieved to see is definitely not fear. Kise shuffles along the wall as the boy walks over to the desk and looks at the whiteboard.

He's surprised when the boy's expression melts into something that looks like relief, and - happiness? No, not quite. But something almost like that emotion.

Needing to feel the human contact, even through exchanging scribbles on whiteboards and moving objects, Kise slowly reaches back and closes the door, He needs to concentrate more than usual to move the handle, after the effort required to use the delicate motions of using a pen, but he manages like he has always done.

Kise waits with baited breath to see what will happen next.

Afterwards, he realizes that he had not been exactly sure what he was expecting, but he didn't expect the boy to raise his gaze until their eyes met, and he also didn't expect the boy to greet him.

Kise knows that they cannot actually see each other - or at least, he knows he is still invisible to the boy. He knows after he moves to the side and the boy's eyes don't follow him, but he quickly moves back until he is where he was before, and something inside him relishes the almost-direct contact, at the silvery-grey eyes that almost seem to see him, look at him, at the face that is clear of clouding emotions like terror or suspicion. Kise feels something inside him open up, something that he had never known he'd had before, and it releases a foreign feeling that floods through his body, and he feels differently to how he remembers ever feeling before.

He knows it is useless, but he replies anyway, holding the steady gaze of the boy in front of him.

It's not like a real conversation - not even a conversation, an exchange of words, when he says "Hello," back, but Kise feels incredibly nostalgic anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only three chapters in, and I've already failed my ambition of updating once a week :')   
> Still, the fourth chapter is already half written and I've planned out most of the story's general direction, so please continue to read ^^ I hope you enjoy the chapters :)))


	4. Four

Kasamatsu is now almost 100% sure that there is a ghost in his apartment, and it _almost_ makes him happy.

He's not exactly sure _what_ he is supposed to be feeling, though.

But the feeling of a real presence in the room, someone else other than him, it's not disturbing or creepy anymore. (Or at least, that's what he tells himself.) It's just company.

Unusual company. But company all the same.

Over the next few days, Kasamatsu slowly begins to learn a little bit more about the invisible roommate in his apartment. They only communicate through the whiteboard, and Kasamatsu has carefully tried not to ask questions that might cause pain. He learns that the ghost does, in fact, like basketball, and that he likes onion gratin soup (whatever the heck that was), and that he likes karaoke. (Liked karaoke. Kasamatsu has doubts on whether ghosts can sing karaoke successfully, being ghosts.)

When Kasamatsu asked what job he would like, he was given two answers - a basketball player and a pilot. (That's how he interpreted the squiggly drawings, anyway. A basketball and a plane. Possibly he meant a flight attendant, but somehow he feels like the ghost meant a pilot.) Apparently he hates earthworms, too. (Kasamatsu can't really blame him for that. He doesn't particularly like the slimy, oddly squishy things himself.)

Walking into his room to find a new answer written on the whiteboard every day becomes natural, and still, every time, his excitement bubbles up in a way that he doesn't feel very often.

Would he say that he knows the invisible roommate living in his apartment? Are they still strangers?

Kasamatsu thinks for a little while, then decides that maybe they don't have the most common of relationships, but he wouldn't call this ghost a strangers anymore.

(He doesn't tell Moriyama or any of his other friends. He's not being petty or anything - he just has a feeling they wouldn't believe him. And why not admit it? He sort of wants to keep a little secret.)

 

 

 

 

Being dead, sleeping doesn't really come naturally to Kise anymore. He doesn't need it, and he doesn't get hungry or ill either, which is nice because it allows him to do as he pleases, but he does miss eating and he faintly remembers the feeling of coming home from school and the bliss of falling into bed and promptly falling asleep.

Kise can sort of sleep, though. It took a bit of work and experimenting, but he can take naps for up to six hours.

The funny thing about interacting so much with a living human is that it constantly reminds Kise that he's dead. It doesn't really bother him much anymore - not like it used to. He can feel that the human is hesitating to ask really personal questions, though. (Being dead meant more time spent observing people rather than trying to interact with them, and Kise believes he has good skills in reading people now.) All the questions are linked to his previous life, but not in a way that would probably be painful.

After the first interaction through words (does it really count as a conversation, if neither of them could really fully see the other? If it was one-sided, in a way?) Kise feels like his voice will come a little more readily now. He's still not used to speaking, but when he sees a familiar figure on the street down below walking into the apartment, he bounces over to the front door and greets him when the door opens.

He never says anything more than "Hello!" but sometimes, just sometimes, he will see a small hint of a smile in reply. Maybe he senses him - there's no doubt that Kise is still invisible to him. But it's something more.

Kise talks afterwards, too. He knows he is probably not heard, but small comments and little statements that he makes as he trails after the boy whilst he's going through his daily actions slowly becomes natural. Kise doesn't mind not having a reply, not really.

And on a few rare occasions, Kise will be hanging around in the same room and he will hear a question. The boy usually doesn't speak directly to him - he's still technically invisible, after all - but it's directed at him and even if it's the sort of question which doesn't really need to be answered, Kise will answer them anyway.

Human contact, Kise thinks, is one of those things which you don't realize you miss so much until you finally feel it again after a long time.

He begins to learn more about the boy living in this apartment, too.

Kasamatsu Yukio. Attending Kaijo High, captain of the basketball club. Point guard, he thinks. Once, his two younger brothers came over. Kise was slightly disappointed that the two younger brothers couldn't sense him as well, but he doesn't really mind.

Kise wants to write questions on their shared whiteboard, but control of the pen is hard and he can only handle it enough to write answers.

(Eventually, though. Kise can feel himself improving every time he picks up the pen, and it's definitely not his imagination that tells him that the time he can hold something is slowly becoming longer and longer. And being dead and having wandered pointlessly for at least several months, Kise has learned patience, to some extent.)

By now, Kise can write several characters in one go. Several words.

Not a whole sentence. But enough.

" _Names_ ," he writes one day. The kanji is muddled and wobbly but legible. " _Introduction_."

He's just finished the last wobbly stroke on the last character when the pen falls through his hands. His fingers just go right through the pen when he bends down and tries to pick it up again, so Kise just concentrates his efforts and nudges it somewhere where it would be noticed easily, and hopes that those two words would be enough for Kasamatsu to understand what he wants. 

He's always felt like something was missing, a little bit. 

Like he's trying to find something, but he doesn't know what to look for. 

But as he hears the front door click and open, he thinks, _maybe this is the step in the right direction that I'm looking for._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this update ^^


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry to just have upped and vanished TT^TT please forgive me, this chapter it also shorter than the rest   
> The words are having trouble flowing out like they did before xD but I have a more-or-less plan for the next few chapters and the overral direction of the story is becoming clearer, so please stay with the story until its end xD   
> (I'll let you get onto the chapter now, sorry hehe xD)

 

Kasamatsu steps into the apartment and almost as soon as he walks in, he sees his bedroom door open by itself.

"I'm home," he says out loud, and immediately feels the embarrassment welling up inside him. He tries his best to ignore it. _It's not like there's anyone here_ , he thinks to himself as he dumps his bag on the floor and leans down to untie his shoes. _Except a ghost. And I don't even know for sure if it's just me going crazy or not._

Once again, he briefly wonders whether he should be concerned.

But then his bedroom door flies open and Kasamatsu feels a slight gust of wind racing past him. Despite himself, he smiles, and trudges off to his bedroom, dropping his school bag on his bed and immediately turning to look at the whiteboard propped up on his desk. (It's sort of become a habit now. And there's always something new written in answer to his question, without fail, every time he comes back from school, every morning when he wakes up on the weekend.)

As per usual, he sees answers scribbled in unsteady handwriting, underneath the question he asked in the morning ( _"Dog person or cat person?"_ ) but there is also something else. He gets closer, and sees that the little bit of extra ink is not a doodle, but a question. Not really a question, more of ... the ghost asking him something?

"Names," Kasamatsu reads aloud. "Introduction ... introduction?" He looks behind him at the door that is now closed even though he had left it open. "You want us to ... introduce ourselves properly?"

Right. They'd never gotten around to that, had they?

Probably because Kasamatsu is still having doubts about there being an actual, real, dead spirit haunting his apartment. And the fact that they only communicate through a whiteboard.

There's no apparent response and Kasamatsu feels the beginnings of a nasty feeling called embarrassment building up inside him. "Um ... could you, like, tell me yes or no? Move something if yes?"

For another embarassingly long moment, nothing in his bedroom moves.

Then the whiteboard pen on the floor (why was it on the floor?) rolls over. A definite answer.

Relief washes away the remaining embarrassment, and Kasamatsu feels the corner of his lips tilt upwards slightly. "Sure."

And maybe he's imagining things, but Kasamatsu feels someone watching him, feels someone else other than him in the room. The feeling of a presence helps Kasamatsu push away the thoughts of _"Don't tell me you're going to introduce yourself to empty air, you idiot,"_ and he stands up, bending down to return the whiteboard pen to the desk before turning around to face the doorway.

After a slight pause where he debates how to properly greet a dead person, Kasamatsu extends his hand and says, "Kasamatsu Yukio, Kaijo High third year. Nice to meet you."

And he almost flinches (almost) when he feels a pressure on his palm. He looks down in surprise - he doesn't see anything, naturally, but he knows - he just knows that he's not imagining anything.

It's real.

He looks back up again, the definite feeling of someone else's hand holding his own, and smiles.

 

 

 

 

  
Kise hears the door open and bounces into the room just in time to see Kasamatsu say "I'm home."

"Welcome home!" The greeting is almost natural, now, and Kise follows the boy into his room, attempting to closing the door as he drops his school bag onto his bed and turns to look at the whiteboard.

Kise has just successfully managed to solidify his arm enough to push the door into place when he hears the boy behind him read out what he had written on the board. There's something a little bit like what he remembers nervousness to be fluttering inside his stomach when he watches the boy staring at the words a bit longer, watches the gears turning inside his head. There's a little bit of uncertaincy that flickers over his face for a fraction of a second, but it vanishes almost immediately and he says, "You want us to ... introduce ourselves?"

Kise starts bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. "Yes!"

There's no change in the boy's expression and Kise remembers that he can't hear him. (Whoops.)

He had to try twice to move the pen when he is asked to signal a yes or no, but he manages in the end, and when he recieves a (slightly relieved-sounding?) "Sure," Kise brightens up and waits for him to out the pen back onto the table before he turns around.

And yes, Kise already knows that the boy's name is Kasamatsu Yukio, he knows that the school nearby that he attends is Kaijo High, but hearing him say it, properly adressed to him this time ... It's different. Kise relishes having someone speak to him, speaking for him directly.

He takes Kasamatsu's outstretched hand, and wills it to be solid. His fingers don't slip through Kasamatsu's, though, and he's making human contact.

"Kise Ryouta," he says back, because he doesn't remember his exact age and he doesn't remember the name of the school he went to when he died, but it's enough.

He sees Kasamatsu smile, and an entirely new feeling blossoms inside him, staying there, warm and comfortable, even after they've both let go.


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of many series of turning-points has arrived ~

The next day, Kasamatsu sees a name written on the whiteboard, and he reads it aloud in his head several times.

_Kise Ryouta._

The name seems vaguely familiar, but so do many others. Kasamatsu looks at the wobbly handwriting and can't help smiles a little.

At school, Moriyama asks him whether he's gotten a girlfriend out of the blue, taking him by surprise. Once he'd stopped spluttering incoherently, he'd asked why Moriyama had thought that.

"You're spacing sometimes recently," his friend replied smugly. "And you yell at everyone less during practice these days. I'm at expert at romance! I know the signs, Kasamatsu!"

"You're delusional," Kasamatsu flatly replied. "And besides, you know how I am around girls."

"Yeah, but I thought you'd gotten over your girl phobia."

"It's not a _phobia_ , what the hell?"

If it's really showing that much, Kasamatsu would get concerned. But proof of a ghost living his apartment - having Kise as an almost constant presence around when he's at home, is ... exciting. It's new, nothing like anything Kasamatsu had experienced before, and it's almost ... nice? Kasamatsu would probably be allowed to act different after something like that. And Moriyama is one of his closest friends who has an uncanny ability to know what he's thinking 75% of the time, so hopefully (hopefully) it didn't show that much.

Sometimes, when he's distracted, Kasamatsu thinks of their introduction. Thinks about the pressure on his hand. So real, like if he'd closed his eyes then he wouldn't know whether the person shaking hands with him was a ghost or a living person.

Wait, maybe he should be paying attention to the teacher instead of thinking about Kise.

Right.

But the teacher's lessons seem incredibly boring, and Kasamatsu wills the clock to move faster so that the school day can end, and he can go home.

 

 

 

 

Kise looks up at the apartment building that Kasamatsu lives in and wonders.

Ghosts ... most of the time, they had a certain place or object they were spiritually tied to. Whether it was the place that they died in, or whether someone had bound their soul to the object, or whether they had gone through a certain experience in life in that place and got stuck there in death as well, they still remained, with that object, in that place. They could move around, but only to a certain extent.

Kise never really experienced that. In his wanderings during his early time as a ghost (as far as he could tell, time was difficult when he was reeling from the confusion of the fact that shit, am I a ghost?) he'd seen some other spirits, floating, with a look on their faces as blank and transparent as their bodies. Meaningless. Empty.

Counting himself lucky, a little, Kise had enjoyed travelling sometimes. No need for tickets, or money. No need for sleep, or food.

He was as free as a ghost could get. No ties. Nothing holding him down.

Except slowly, he knows that he's beginning to feel sometimes changing. Even now, as he drifts towards the road, he feels something growing steadily more uncomfortable the further away from the building that he goes. It's slight - very slight, hardly even there - but its presence is definite. Like a little thread, thin and delicate but tugging him back, keeping him grounded.

Grounded to that one apartment.

And yet, the strangest thing is that Kise doesn't mind.

He's content, perfectly content with staying. He doesn't mind at all. During the weekdays, in the afternoons, he goes outside, sees the cars on the road, the sunlight flashing off the riverwater, the people hurrying down the streets with their earphones in and their heads down. Occasionally, even, a misty, transparent figure, loitering in a doorway before fading again. Kise watches, silent, unseen, a world who wouldn't notice the death of a single person, a world constantly moving, changing, things being erased and redrawn in a never-ending cycle.

Then when the sun starts its descent, he'll go back. Back to the apartment, through the door which he's seen so many times now, and he'll wait, until he hears the key in the lock turn, and Kasamatsu will kick off his shoes and say, _"I'm home."_

Kise will bounce up to him, greeting him loudly even though he knows he cannot hear, and he'll follow Kasamatsu to his bedroom where he'll read Kise's answer on the whiteboard, dump his bag onto the bed, and take out his homework.

Does Kise count as a roommate? He doesn't know.

But "living", in a sense, with someone else who is alive and breathing, is a constant reminder that Kise is not. And - well, Kise really doesn't care that he's dead, but a little twinge of regret, or longing, maybe, makes itself known to him at night.

 

 

 

 

This time, when Kasamatsu opens his door, the atmosphere in his corridor strikes him as slightly ... odd.

Different.

He stands in the doorway for a few seconds, trying to remember whether he had forgotten something, or whether something was out of place.

He doesn't see anything, though.

 _Strange_.

Shaking off the feeling of slight anxiety, Kasamatsu closes the door behind him and takes off his shoes.

By the time he's finished his dinner, Kasamatsu's already dismissed the odd feeling. He's been mistaken before, of course, and the fact that the ghost is able to move things around to a certain extent is probably what made him think that something was funny. Maybe something was misplaced that he didn't notice immediately.

The sky is dark outside, the streets already starting to empty, the streetlights blinking occasionally down below. Kasamatsu stands at the window for a few seconds, watching the lights from the cars moving up and down the street, before pulling down the blinds and making his way to the bathroom.

Everything looks normal when he switches on the light, yet the same odd feeling starts to bubble up inside him and Kasamatsu stops, again. He sees a flash of movement in the bathroom mirror out of the corner of his eye, but he's pretty sure that it's himself moving. Glancing down at the sink, he reaches for his toothbrush, and runs it under the tap for a moment before he grabs the toothpaste.

He looks back up at his reflection.

Only, it's not his reflection that he sees. His reflection is blocked by someone who appears to he standing in front of him, poking at the tap. Someone who he should be able to see with his own eyes, but is only visible in the mirror.

Kasamatsu drops his toothbrush and screams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably meant to post this a while, I thought I was up-to-date with the chapters I'd written so far XD I'm sorry to have kept anyone waiting   
> ANyway, I hope this chapter was a new exciting turn of events!   
> See you next time :) <3


	7. Seven

Kasamatsu stops screaming once he runs out of breath, flattened against the opposite wall and staring into the mirror and the person who is waving his hands in panic and closing and opening his mouth like he's _talking_ , except Kasamatsu doesn't hear anything except his own rapid breathing.

 _Calm down, calm down_ \- Kasamatsu breathes out slowly, closing his eyes and feeling his heart racing a hundred miles an hour in his ears.

Part of him hopes that he'd imagined everything and that the person wouldn't be there when he opened his eyes, but when he looks again, he's still there, a pink flush of embarrassment covering his face and waving his hands around in an apologetic manner.

And then - it clicks.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

"You -" Kasamatsu gapes, and suddenly the shock and panic from moments ago is gone and he's staring again, this time in wonder.

The person in the mirror has stopped talking silently, cocking his head to one side in confusion.

" _Kise_?"

There's a moment of stillness, but Kasamatsu is sure.

In the mirror's reflection, the blonde haired boy breaks into a wide grin and nods enthusiastically, starting to talk before Kasamatsu cuts him off with a flustered, "Sorry, I can't hear you yet."

(Yet. Why did Kasamatsu say _yet_? What was that feeling?)

Drooping visibly, Kise pouts for a second, then smiles again, and Kasamatsu relaxes.

"So ... this is what you look like, huh?" Kasamatsu watches as the boy perks up and stares at himself, his brown eyes wide and curious. (He looks young. So young to have already left the living world behind.) "You've never seen what you looked like?"

Kise shakes his head, still staring at his reflection in wonder and ... disbelief?

Kasamatsu sighs, and feels himself smile, just a little.

 

 

 

 

 

"Middle school?"

Kise nods, holding up three fingers. "Third year, huh ..."

(Kasamatsu is in his third year of high school. It's only four years difference in age, yet it seems too early to be ... on the other side. He can't help but feel a little pity, for one of the people in the thousands, millions, who didn't have the chance to do so many more things.)

He doesn't mention what he's thinking.

People are sensitive about their life, and Kasamatsu imagines that they'll be just as sensitive about their deaths.

"So you're, what ... fifteen? Sixteen?" Kasamatsu raises an eyebrow. "That makes me your senpai, then. You better listen to me."

Kise wears a look like an affronted cat look that Kasamatsu finds hilarious. "Shame you can't help with washing the dishes, I could use a hand around the place."

The blonde pouts again, and even though it's only a few short minutes since Kasamatsu found that Kise was now suddenly visible in mirrors, Kasamatsu is comfortable with Kise. It's like talking with an old friend, and for Kasamatsu, who takes a while to properly warm up to people who he's never interacted with before, it's somewhat strange.

(Kise isn't exactly a normal person though. Perhaps that's why.)

"Just to be sure - you said that you couldn't see yourself in reflections before, right?"

Kise shakes his head, then shrugs. Kasamatsu takes it as a no.

"I wonder what brought this on?"

He doesn't expect an answer, of course. Kise appears to have just as much knowledge about what's going on as he does (i.e. none).

He's perfectly content with the one-sided conversation in the mirror.

And the voice of concern at the back of his mind, the one which tells him that none of this could possibly be real, that if ghosts existed the world would know, and that it was his delusioned mind making things up for his eyes; the voice is hardly there anymore. Kasamatsu is not quite sure why, but he just knows. The voice is wrong.

In the mirror, Kise tentatively reaches out to touch the mirror-Kasamatsu's shoulder.

There's a kind of apprehension, suppressed yearning, perhaps, in his eyes, but it's faint and disappears completely when his fingers pass through the cloth. Kasamatsu feels nothing, except a slight hot-and-cold feeling that might be his imagination.

"Guess we're not at that stage yet."

Kise pouts dejectedly, lacing his fingers together, then pulling his hands away from each other and putting them together again, as if to assure himself that he was real, at least in the reflection.

There is a flicker of something that surfaces in Kasamatsu's mind, but it fades as soon as he tries to grasp it.

A sense of familiarity?

But he's been talking a while. Kasamatsu stands up. "Sorry, I can't hang around in the bathroom forever, I'm going to have to go eventually." Kise nods understandingly, but still points at the mirror and then Kasamatsu, who blinks and raises an eyebrow. "You want me to break the mirror out of the wall and lug it around with me?"

Kise waves his hands around, a faint red flush appearing on his cheeks in embarrassment, and he laughs. "I'm pretty sure there's other mirrors somewhere. Maybe you'll appear in other reflections as well."

Again, Kasamatsu isn't quite sure whether it is his imagination, or whether he can actually feel a presence following him into his bedroom.

But before he can start to question his own sanity (again) he sees a small movement out of the corner of his eye, a faint flash of yellow hair that moves through the reflection off the window before disappearing. Now that he knows Kise is actually (probably) watching him, sitting down and doing anything feels a little more awkward than doing it alone, but Kasamatsu doesn't really mind.

 

 

 

So maybe Kise had been lying a little bit when he said that he'd never seen his own reflection before.

Sure, he hasn't really seen it. A few times wandering into fellow ghosts and seeing a tinge of yellow reflecting back at him, or a shadow of a person that wasn't there in a shop window, or a silhouette that stood dark against the bright tips of the river that runs nearby. But not like this, so clear, so ... alive.

He feels disappointed when Kasamatsu has to leave. It does feel a little awkward, and he's somewhat forgotten how to socialize after what seemed to be so many years of being invisible; his inability to be heard is not helping, either. But the company was nice.

He drifts back to the bathroom after watching Kasamatsu start to flick through several pages of homework, and looks at himself again. As of now, Kise still can phase through most objects with ease, so he drifts through the sink a little closer to take a look at himself, a face lit dimly by whatever sunlight has managed to break through the dense clouds and the window-glass.

It's a face that he feels like he recognizes, and at the same time, the face of a stranger.

Which he almost is. Kise doesn't know much about himself at all. Some things remain, remnants of his past life that must have somehow been carried through to the other realm with him; feelings, sometimes, little dreams and short blurry memories and words. But not enough - not enough to call himself the person that he was when he was alive. Ghost-Kise is not the past-Kise. He never will be.

But that's fine.

He doesn't need to be past-Kise anymore. He's just Kise. Somewhere around middle-school age, Kasamatsu's kouhai, and maybe even his flatmate.

Kise can see the little golden flecks in his eyes if he looks close enough, flakes of yellow and honey among the brown. It looks so real, so alive, and if he ignores the fact he's more or less fusing with the sink, he could almost pretend that he is a living, breathing human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so ummmm i kind of forgot that I'd written this and I was rushing to finish the eighth chapter instead... good news, I'm one chapter ahead of schedule, then? XD   
> ANyway, that took me way to long to update, I'm so sorry, but I DO know how this whole story is going to end and I have plans and everything and I am 101% confident that I will properly carry this story out until the end so please bear with my sporadic updates until then ^^


	8. Eight

Kasamatsu decides to establish some rules the very next day.

"No weird things," he says firmly. Kise just looks innocently confused (as if Kasamatsu hadn't caught him watching while he was sleeping only a few hours ago), and holds his hands up. _Why?_

The elder boys lists off his fingers. "No watching people creepily when they sleep, no playing with things I told you not to touch, no coming into the bathroom while I'm using it without knocking - wait, no, that won't work. Okay, no coming into the bathroom without a warning or without telling me." Kise pouts, and Kasamatsu raises an eyebrow. "Those are the norms, are they not?"

Kise's face brightens again at the word 'norms', and Kasamatsu feels the corner of his lip twitch up.

"Say, Kise," he adds, and the blonde boy in the mirror turns back around to face him questioningly. "You don't know sign language, do you?"

Shaking his head, Kise shrugs and points back at Kasamatsu questioningly. _Do you know it?_

"No, I don't either. But I think it'll be useful to learn, won't it?"

It takes a second or two for Kise to let the words sink in, then his face lights up again with a childish excitement, sending a new kind of warmth spreading through Kasamatsu's body.

 

 

The next time Kasamatsu comes home, he holds up a plastic bag and says, "You can touch things more easily now, right?"

There's a cluster of little bells, small silver things hanging from a blue cord. Kasamatsu sits on the floor and untangles them as Kise watches. "Since you can't knock on doors or anything like that yet, just hit these to let me know you're there. Got it?"

He glances into the mirror for confirmation, and Kise looks positively delighted.

At the end of the day, there's a silver bell tied to the handle of every door.

 

 

Kise has a little too much fun with the bells, Kasamatsu observes. Even if he has no intention of coming in, he plays with them like a cat plays with a toy mouse, hitting it back and forth without stopping. He won't say it, of course, but it's almost endearing to watch - and at the same time, also incredibly sad. The more he gets to know Kise, the less he remembers that the boy isn't actually alive, in the same way that he is.

Kasamatsu often forgets. When he's talking - even if the other boy doesn't reply out loud - to Kise, watching his animated facial expressions and gestures and when he sees a transparent reflection in the window of Kise crouching outside one of the doors and swatting at the silver bells, Kasamatsu forgets how different they are.

Kasamatsu is still curious, despite himself. He knows that Kise - probably - doesn't remember everything about his old life, and maybe he doesn't want to remember how he died, but Kasamatsu still wants to know. It feels like he's missing a vital part of Kise, and even though he likes to think that their relationship is developing, the differences between their worlds will always be the invisible barrier that stops them from going any further.

But he tells himself not to ask. It would most definitely be a sensitive topic, after all. He doesn't know what it feels like to know that he isn't alive, and he knows that he shouldn't take the chance.

And anyway, why should it matter? Kise is still Kise in the same way that Kasamatsu is still Kasamatsu. Alive or not, they are still both two people who think and feel and don't know much about each other yet, but are trying to get to know each other better.

 

 

  
He's walking home from school the next day, past the row of small shops that he usually passes by, and when he comes by the bookstore, he slows, then stops. It's a small store, and Kasamatsu has never really been very enthusiastic about reading, especially of late; but he does remember seeing a certain book here once. He wonders if it's still there. (It probably is. It isn't the type of book that many people come to the store to buy.)

Ten minutes later, he walks out again with an extra book in his bag.

 

 

 

Even though he knows that he shouldn't, Kise still likes to drift through walls and doors without hitting the bells sometimes. He's curious - he's probably always been this curious - and he does want to see what Kasamatsu gets up to in his free time. He's the only human that Kise lingers around, after all; the strange tugging feeling has gotten more intense lately when he tries to venture away from Kasamatsu's apartment, and now he can't even go further than a few streets away before the tugging begins to feel like a physical restraint pulling him back, and he has to strain just to keep walking.

Again, he doesn't really mind. He likes hanging around Kasamatsu's apartment, playing with the bells and experimenting with his newly developing abilities to solidify himself long enough to touch and pick up things. (He can open doors easily now - he still can't seem to knock on anything hard enough to make a sound, though - and he's able to read about one chapter in a book per day before his concentration and solidifying abilities fails him and the thin, fiddly pages slip through his hands.)

He thinks he's picked up on most of Kasamatsu's habits by now. So it surprises him when he secretly floats into Kasamatsu's room one day after school, expecting him to be on his computer watching all the recent basketball games (which he usually does during that time), but instead finding him sitting on his bed, a small book in his hands. Kasamatsu doesn't notice him yet (though as the days go by Kise thinks Kasamatsu is being able to feel his presence more easily), so Kise edges a little closer and peeks at the cover.

It's a guide for Japanese Sign Language.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it feels nice to be writing a few chapters ahead of what is published on here so I think I'll keep writing more chapters ^_^ The story will start to pick up pace from about here-ish ... (and so is my exams TT_TT) ... I hope you can continue to enjoy reading this :))


	9. Nine

Moriyama watches Kasamatsu staring up into apparently empty air during the water break halfway through practice. The captain's hands are making small movements, often slow and clumsy, and Moriyama thinks he sees Kasamatsu silently mouthing words that he can't make out from this distance. He shuffles over and nudges .

"Is he talking to himself?"

Kobori glances over absently, then shrugs. "Dunno. Maybe he has a test coming up or something."

"He doesn't revise out loud like Hayakawa though, does he?"

"Don't ask me. He's still playing fine and seems normal, probably not something we should be worried about."

Moriyama glances at Kasamatsu again. "Yeah, okay."

 

 

 

Kasamatsu catches Moriyama after practice finishes.

"Hey, are you free after school today?"

Moriyama nods in response. "Why? Do you need something?"

"Mind coming over to mine for a bit? I need to check something ... uh, homework. I'm not sure whether I'm doing the right thing." Kasamatsu hopes it's a good enough excuse.

It seems to work. Moriyama just laughs, says that he's not the one Kasamatsu should be asking, but he'll come anyway because he has nothing better to do.

They chat together on the way back to Kasamatsu's house, but Kasamatsu's mind is somewhere else. He doesn't really need help with deciphering the teacher's admittedly unclear instructions. He just wants to check - check that Kise is still real, check if someone else other than him can see him.

He's not sure exactly how he's going to do that yet. Kasamatsu hardly feels like this is necessary at all - he's heard and seen the silver bells on the doors chime before what seems like a cool drift of air pushes the door open. He's seen out of the corner of his eye, flashes of yellow and movement in the reflection of windows, laptop screens, and the such. He's seen Kise, seen him so clearly that he might as well have been right in front of him, he's seen every detail and he can recall clearly to his mind the golden-brown eyes, blonde hair, and the cheerful, bright smile.

"Kasamatsu? Dude, you're zoning out. Where are you?" Moriyama snaps his fingers in front of Kasamatsu's face, and he jumps. They're outside his apartment. "Ah. Right. Sorry."

 

 

 

"Bells?" Moriyama reaches over and touches one of the silver bells. He glances around. "Hey, there's bells on every door. Those weren't there before, were they?" He looks at Kasamatsu questioningly. Kasamatsu simply shrugs feigns indifference. "My niece came over a few days ago. She likes the sound."

"Niece? I didn't know you had a niece."

"One of my older cousins' kids, I mean." Kasamatsu spots the bathroom door edging open, and in the sliver of a reflection that he can see, he catches Kise's gaze. Moriyama is still chatting absently, his back towards Kasamatsu. Kasamatsu signs one word. _Bell_.

He's not expecting Kise to understand. He hasn't even shown Kise the book, has he? But Kise blinks once, echoes the sign slowly, then his eyes clear in understanding and he points to Moriyama. Kasamatsu nods, and Kise's reflection moves sideways out of sight.

A moment later, one of the bells hanging from the door in front of Moriyama is knocked, like something invisible had swatted at it, and Kasamatsu clearly hears the chiming. Moriyama doesn't blink.

"Did you hear that?" Kasamatsu asks. Moriyama stops, listening carefully. Kise hits the bells again.

"No," Moriyama says, shrugging. "What did you hear?"

Kasamatsu feels the first cold drops of confusion and dread seeping into him. "Nothing," he replies airily, brushing past him into his bedroom. "Probably just the wind."

 

 

 

  
After Moriyama has left, Kasamatsu drifts into the living room, staring out of the window in confusion.

"That didn't go as expected," he says into empty air. Except he's almost sure that it's not empty; somehow, he feels a presence, another pair of eyes watching him, another person aware in the room. "Is he just deaf? Should I have tried to show him a mirror with you?"

Kasamatsu gets the slightest of a cold air in response. "Maybe not," he sighs, trudging over to his bedroom. There is a mirror there now, as well. The door opens before Kasamatsu reaches it, and Kasamatsu stares at it thoughtfully before walking in and closing it.

Moriyama did not appear to be able to hear or see Kise, or even the things that Kise interacted with.

But Kasamatsu could see and hear the bells. Kasamatsu knows he's not hallucinating, either, or he would have hallucinated the door being opened by Kise and would have ended up walking into it.

Something doesn't quite add up.

Kasamatsu sighs, sits down at his desk, and reaches for the whiteboard.

 

 

 

  
Kise can clearly see the confusion on Kasamatsu's face when they enter his room, and he's not surprised.

He doesn't know what's happening either. Somehow, the longer Kise's been in this strange limbo between life and death and whatever state he may be in, the more questions arise. And he hasn't been able to answer a single one of them.

There are still some questions he can answer, though.

He watches as Kasamatsu picks up the whiteboard, a question scrawled onto it - "Best school subject?" and looks at the answer. He pretends not to laugh, knowing that Kise is in the room, but Kise can tell anyway at the quiet huff that escapes him.

Kise ends up smiling too.

 

 

 

 

Now that more than a week has passed since Kasamatsu first saw Kise in the mirror, Kasamatsu definitely feels like he can feel Kise's presence anywhere he goes. It was gradual, at first - he could only guess, could only wonder whether the almost non-existence flutter of air was from the open window or Kise or his imagination. But - and he has absolutely no idea how, or why - something about Kise seemed to change. It's like the saying of feeling someone's eyes on you - Kasamatsu never really believed it much, because scientifically speaking, he couldn't see how one could _feel_ someone's gaze, or presence; but there has been a feeling, a little shift in the surrounding atmosphere, maybe, and then he knows that Kise is near. (More accurately, however, he could tell when a cluster of silver bells begin to chime and a door opens seemingly by itself.)

Now, he's flipping through a few more pages of his textbook as he waits for the kettle to boil. And then - the door doesn't open, and he doesn't hear any bells - but something in the air changes, and Kasamatsu glances over his shoulder (forgetting that he can't see Kise in full, yet) and then glances into the metallic, reflective surface of the kettle in confirmation.

Sure enough, he sees a yellow-haired figure wandering over to the open balcony window.

"Hey, Kise," he says, and watches in faint amusement as Kise jumps and turns around in surprise. The reflection in the kettle is distorted and blurry, and Kise is too far away for him to make out the expression on his face, but Kasamatsu doesn't need to see to know that Kise is wearing a familiar startled look on his face.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have my finals coming up too soon T_T I'm going to try and write lots of chapters now while I have time so I can still post somewhat regularly even if I'm busy revising ... wish me luck xD


	10. Ten

Lunchtime practice is canceled today, and Kasamatsu suddenly finds that lunch break is far longer than he realizes.

He tries looking for a place to pass the time, and finds himself entering the school library. It's quite a large library, as far as high schools go, and has offered valuable resources for his school projects more than once.

Well, maybe this time it could help him again.

He knows there is a section somewhere about the supernatural - he's seen it listed on one of the shelves' labels - but since he's never really had a reason to go there, he's not familiar with where everything is. As expected, most of the books there are just novels, fictional stories about vampires and werewolves and the such, but at the end of the row Kasamatsu finds what he's looking for - a few small volumes, labelled as non-fiction, on ghostly phenomenons and other similar case studies and real life examples.

He's never really believed them whole-heartedly, but with what's been happening recently Kasamatsu feels like he might finds a few more answers here.

 

 

  
Kasamatsu leaves the library at the end of lunch break without having learned anything new.

It is a little disappointing (though it was mildly interesting reading about all the vaguely described and most likely exaggerated paranormal reports) that he didn't find anything to ease the confusion and curiosity that's building up steadily each day.

There is another thing that he could do, though.

He's tried putting it off - it feels wrong to do it, like an invasion of privacy (which, he guesses, it is, really.)

He has a self-study period next. Picking a seat at the back of the classroom where nobody else will be able to see his phone screen, he opens Google.

 

 

  
"Dude, I swear we're not allowed to use our phones in lessons?"

Moriyama leans over towards Kasamatsu, who just shrugs. "I got permission from the teacher."

He hasn't, but there are no teachers in vicinity to tell them otherwise.

"Should I use mine, then? I can't be bothered to translate all this English without Google translate."

"That's not the point of the homework ..."

Moriyama pulls out his own phone anyway, and Kasamatsu looks back at the screen. There were results, but none of the photos or descriptions matched the yellow-haired ghost in his apartment. There should have been a news report, maybe a school photo, or anything, but it's like Kise never existed at all.

 _Maybe he just died a long time ago_ , Kasamatsu reasons with himself. _I don't recognize the uniform he wears either. Maybe he just came from an old middle school decades ago that nobody remembers anymore._

The feeling that something doesn't quite click doesn't go away.

 

 

  
Kise never thought he would have fun learning another language.

Sure, from his sketchy "memories" that usually only consist of flickers of emotion tied to certain objects and actions, he remembers that English was probably his best school subject, but he doesn't get the feeling that he really enjoyed it. Not like how he was enjoying flicking through the Sign Language book, trying to memorize the different signs for different objects and phrases.

It does confuse him a little bit, though.

Once someone died, everything for them would stop, right?

But here he is, thinking, seeing, and even learning.

Memorizing words and bits of grammar for a different kind of language.

Practicing with Kasamatsu in a mirror or a window reflection, hesitant and unsure at first but gradually getting better.

It's almost like he's still _alive_.

 

 

 

On a different note, Kise is finding interacting with objects much easier now. He still can't produce sounds by knocking on doors or walls (he sometimes wonders if it is a law in this ghost-world, that they can't fully interact with things) but now he doesn't feel the need to have to concentrate fully just to keep himself solid enough to hold objects and carry things around.

It's very strange, to say the least.

But also very convenient.

Sometimes, when Kasamatsu is still at school, Kise can wander around the house and pretend that he's just a regular middle-schooler, hanging out at home on the weekend, just another regular day in a regular person's life. He can pick books of shelves and read them for extended periods of time, he can play with the basketball (as long as he doesn't use it too much inside the house and break anything, as strictly stated by Kasamatsu), he can shuffle through Kasamatsu's homework papers and old textbooks and attempt to try questions from those. If he walks past the bathroom mirror, he can see his own reflection instead of the blank, empty stillness that used to be there before.

Kise can feel things, too. He's not sure whether he wan't able to before - he can't really remember, and he didn't really pay attention either - but now if he opens the window and leans out when the weather is right, he can feel a cold wind that rushes past, and if he stretches out his arms far enough he can feel the cold smoothness of rain when it comes. He can feel the warmth of the sun when it falls onto the carpet through the balcony window, and the coolness of shadow when it leaves.

It's like his senses are slowly coming back to him, though he's almost sure that he never really lost them in the first place.

Kise steps away from the window - steps, because for some reason, his feet are firmly planted on the floor instead of floating a few centimeters off the ground - and wanders around the living room. He loosens his control over his body, expecting any moment to pop off the ground and begin floating on the familiar cushion of air like usual - but it doesn't come.

He glances down uncertainly. He can't see his own feet, but he can definitely feel the hardness of the wooden floor underneath him instead of the vague emptiness of open air.

Closing his eyes, he concentrates for a few seconds - and sure enough, when he opens one eye, and then the other, he's definitely a little higher than before. Drifting over to the bathroom, Kise watches himself bob up and down for a few moments, before letting go of his concentration and watching himself fall a centimeter of two back onto the floor. He can definitely feel the impact of the floor through his feet.

_So now I have to concentrate to float?_

I had to concentrate to keep myself on the ground, before. 

Kise leans over the sink and stares at himself in the mirror. Nothing looks different.

_That's odd._

Shrugging to himself, Kise turns and walks towards the wall, knowing that if he passes through it he'll end up in Kasamatsu's bedroom. (He feels like reading a few more pages of the sign language manual.)

Instead of naturally phasing ghost-like through the wall like he's always done, like he _should_ have done, Kise smacks into the solid, flat surface and topples backwards, landing on the floor.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The climax of the story is growing nearer ^_^


	11. Eleven

"He's acting weird again."

Hayakawa glances over at their captain, who is shooting basket after basket during their individual practice. "I don't see anything wrong ...? He's scoring all his shots, isn't he?"

Shaking his head, Moriyama points to the clock. "No, you haven't been counting. He's meant to be doing something else now, he's been shooting for the past twenty-five minutes."

"Maybe he's thinking about something?"

"Probably. But he has been out of it a lot recently. Maybe I should go ask him if something's up?"

"Perhaps he's gotten himself a girlfriend?"

Moriyama snorts. "As if. You've seen him around girls -"

A basketball comes hurtling his way, and Kasamatsu yells across the gym that he can hear everything that they're saying. Moriyama escapes into the locker rooms, laughing.

 

 

 

  
Kasamatsu squints at his phone.

There appears to be nothing special about the photo. But he knew that when he took it, Kise was standing onto a few feet away, in what should have been clear view of the camera.

But there is nothing. There's his couch, a small carpet, the potted plant his aunt gave him a few years ago, and a window, but no familiar yellow-haired figure, no Kise. There is not even a hint of anything unusual, no blurriness or strange transparency anywhere.

The door creaks open and he looks up, watching the reflection-Kise through the small mirror in his desk as he pokes his head in, glancing around the room before coming inside and shutting the door.

"Something up?" Kasamatsu asks, putting down his phone to half sign the words as he speaks. Kise just shrugs. He signs a question. _What are you doing?_

Gesturing towards the phone, Kasamatsu raises an eyebrow. "I tried to take a photo of you the other day. You don't show up at all."

Kise gives him a wide-eyed look of exaggerated surprise. _Photo? Me?_

"Yeah, yeah. Take a look for yourself - I don't know why, but you don't seem to show up."

Kise picks up the phone - with an usual ease, as Kasamatsu notes (before, only a few days before, Kise had to take a few moments to concentrate just to open the doors, but now Kasamatsu can't remember the last time he's seen Kise lose concentration and let something he was holding fall through his hands) - and stares at the screen for a few moments. He points to himself in question, and Kasamatsu guesses his question. "I _did_ take a photo of you."

Holding back a laugh at the suspicious look that Kise is sending him, Kasamatsu points at his desk. "Look - go stand over there, and I'll take another photo."

 

 

 

Kise flops down on the couch and sighs unhappily. _I'm confused_ , he signs sloppily, waving his arms around. Kasamatsu leans against the kitchen counter as the kettle begins to boil, shrugging, watching Kise through the reflection of the window. "Don't ask me, I'm just as confused as you are."

A gloomy silence falls over them.

Kise rolls off the couch, landing on the floor heavily (again surprising Kasamatsu - he'd expected Kise to land on the invisible, soft cushion of air that usually kept him from actually touching the floor) and stares up at him, before making a strange wafty motion with his hands that Kasamatsu has learned over time was Kise-language for _ghost_ , then the word _first_ and then pointing a finger at Kasamatsu and then himself. Kasamatsu blinked. "Am I the first person ... wait, no, are you the first ghost that I've seen?"

Kise nods, waiting expectantly.

"Well, yes, I don't remember seeing or feeling anything ... supernatural, before. I didn't even think it was possible."

Kise sticks his lower lip out thoughtfully. _No other ghosts_ , he signs eventually. _All stopped appearing. Haven't seen one in ages._

"I wish I could tell you what that means, but I really have no idea what to do now." Kasamatsu switches the kettle off, reaching over to grab a clean mug. "For all I know, we could both be hallucinating each other."

 _Not_ , Kise signs stubbornly, and Kasamatsu laughs. "Yeah, I know."

 

 

 

Kise watches Kasamatsu sit at his desk, typing up an essay with a steaming mug of coffee at his side. Pretending to be reading through the sign language journal, Kise touches the mattress, flinching back when he feels the hardness of the springs and the soft fabric underneath his fingers that he shouldn't have felt. Pushing harder, he tries to disconnect himself from the solidness of his form, trying to will his fingers to phase through the mattress with the same ease that used to come to him as natural as breathing.

He starts to feel - or perhaps imagine - a small ache in his fingers, but he keeps trying anyway, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to imagine himself once again becoming as untouchable as mist or air.

Even when he finally - finally - manages to slip his hand through the mattress, watching it disappear up until his wrist, the knot of panic in his stomach doesn't go away.

It used to be the only thing he was able to do and now he finds it this hard to be able to do it even partially. Only in the space of a few weeks, maybe less, he's almost lost the ability completely.

Will he lose it altogether? Forever?

_And then what?_

What if he becomes solid? If he loses the slight transparency about him that he can see in the mirror? What if his voice starts being heard? What is Kasamatsu becomes able to see him without needing a mirror? What if other people begin to see him?

At what point would be stop being a ghost, and start being alive again?

 _Wait_. Kise shakes his head violently. That won't change. He can carry out his strange limbo existence like this for however long he can, but the fact that he is dead won't be able to change. The one thing about him that severs him from the world of the living will always be there.

He remembers it so clearly, too. He can't just come back to life so easily. He's dead, he knows. He can feel it. Something that doesn't feel quite alive inside him, maybe the absence of a heartbeat, the absence of the rise and fall of his chest that should have been his breathing.

_But it would be nice, wouldn't it?_

Kise stares down at his hands, a flutter of longing washing over him.

_To be alive again._

_That wouldn't be so bad._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finally finished pre-writing all the chapters!, so you can expect quicker updates now ^_^ (I'm still wondering whether to write an epilogue ... I can't seem to write one that sounds right, though ... :/


	12. Twelve

 

There's been a funny feeling pulling at Kasamatsu's gut the entire walk home.

He's checked his bags at least eleven times to make sure he hasn't left anything at school, so he knows it's not that. He's pretty certain he didn't leave the stove on or anything, but even if he did Kise would (probably) have been sensible and able enough to switch it off before his entire apartment burnt down. There doesn't seem to be anything _off_ , but something ...

 _It's probably the school cafeteria's dodgy food_ , he thinks. He fumbles with his keys in his pocket, before fitting them into the lock and pulling open the door.

He's taking off his shoes, watching out of the corner of his eye to see when a door would randomly open and a seemingly invisible person - though Kasamatsu has learnt to quickly find Kise's reflection in a mirror, or metal surface, or anything reflective - would bounce up to him, and say hello. He can feel Kise's presence much more easily now, so it's easy for him to figure out whether Kise is here or not.

Moments later, a door clicks open. Kasamatsu looks up, opens his mouth to say hi -

\- and drops his bag and _stares_.

Standing right in front of him, a slightly puzzled look on his face, is a person that is undeniably Kise, and yet Kasamatsu can _see_ him. There is no reflection needed, no mirrors or windows, he can see the boy right in front of him with his own eyes. There is a blurriness about his figure, a strange kind of fuzziness towards his edges and a transparency that allows him to see _through_ into the corridor and the kitchen beyond, but he is indisputably, without a shadow of doubt, Kise.

Kise doesn't seem to realize, still staring at him with the same confused, curious expression on his face. Seemingly forgetting that Kasamatsu wasn't supposed to be able to see him, he instinctively signs a question - _What's going on?_

Voice having failed him, Kasamatsu shakily signs back, _I can see you._

Kise frowns. _Wait, what?_ He begins to sign another question, then remembers that he's meant to be invisible, and his eyes go almost comically wide.

Kasamatsu blinks rapidly. "Wait - this - how?" He steps closer. "You were still invisible when I left this morning - how - did you do something?"

Kise shakes his head frantically. _No_ , he signs, his hands flying in his panic, his gestures almost too fast for Kasamatsu to see. _I just did what I normally do, I had no idea -_

"But - it literally can't be, you're -"

 _I don't know!_ Kise signs, looking both distraught and utterly perplexed. _Did_ you _do something?_

"How could _I_ have done something? I'm the normal human here!"

Waving his hands around in panic, Kise signs back swiftly, _Then how did you start seeing me?_

"You think I have any idea about what's going on? I have the _least_ idea what's going on normally, much less when I start being able to see _ghosts_  -"

Kise shakes his head violently, as if to clear his thoughts. He signs a hurried reply. _There's no ghost education system, I have had zero idea about my entire existence ever since I started doing this -_

"Wait - wait, okay, let's calm down -" Kasamatsu holds his hands up, sighing. "My neighbors probably think I'm talking to myself now, that's great ... okay, you can go to my bedroom, I'll be there in a sec and we'll try to figure out what's going on."

 

 

"I have no idea what's going on," Kasamatsu says finally, falling forward into his bed and burying his face in his pillow. "Ugh."

Kise scrunches up his face. _Can you at least try?_ he signs.

"I'm trying! Google is the worst teacher in the times when you need them the most." Kasamatsu scowls down at the completely irrelevant search results. "There's nothing, and I can't find anything."

 _Photo_ , Kise signs helpfully.

Kasamatsu blinks. "You want me to take a photo of you?" He shrugs. "I mean, no harm in trying."

 

 

  
Kise frowns down at Kasamatsu's phone. _Yeah, that's just made me even more confused._

"Talk to me about it," Kasamatsu groans, flopping down on his bed again. "You show up fine in this photo - even if you do look like a badly cropped image on Photoshop that someone's accidentally put the transparency to 40% on - and then when I look at the mugshot I took of you when you were still invisible, you suddenly show up there as well."

 _Badly cropped_? Kise signs back, shoots him an affronted look. Kasamatsu raises an eyebrow. "Your outline is all blurry, how else do I describe it?"

 

 

Teamcaptain: [image attatched]

Teamcaptain: Moriyama

Playboy: ??? whats that

Teamcaptain: some people are saying you can see a person in this photo? I was just curious

Playboy: theres nobody in that photo tho

Teamcaptain: really?

Playboy: i mean i cant??? can you see someone?

Teamcaptain: not really I guess

Playboy: it this like one of those things like the blue/black/white/gold dress

Teamcaptain: I think that's different

Playboy: yea i guess? i really dont see how anyone could see someone there though

Playboy: theres literally nothing

 

  
Kise pouts. _I'm clearly there, though,_ he signs stubbornly. Kasamatsu rubs at his eyes. "I know, I can see you too, but apparent nobody else can? Am I a ghost medium or something?"   
  
_Maybe he's pulling your leg_ , Kise suggests.

"Maybe."

Kasamatsu isn't convinced, and he can tell that Kise can tell.

"There's an explanation for most things in this world," he says finally. "We'll find it eventually."

 

 

 

 

Ghosts don't need sleep, so Kise finds himself wandering the apartment once Kasamatsu has fallen asleep.

He didn't notice when it happened, but now if he stretches his arms out in front of him, he can see his hands, he can see the whiteness of his school blazer, the light blue shirt underneath. He can look down and see his own body, transparent and slightly fuzzy around the edges as it is, with his own eyes.

Frankly, it's terrifying.

He's not sure whether the mundane, repeated days of wandering around Japan as an invisible and inaudible ghost, or suddenly being shoved through change after unexpected and explainable change, is better. He would have hated to keep on existing in the same meaningless way, as a dead person, but the unknown was so much scarier.

There's no knowing what to expect next anymore.

Kise finds himself standing at the door of the apartment, his hand inches away from the door handle.

If so much as changed, what else has changed without him knowing? What else will change in the transparent future of someone who isn't supposed to still be 'alive'?

He's unable to fully let himself phase through objects anymore, so he opens the door as quietly as possible, knowing that his own footsteps still don't make a sound. Stepping out into the stairwell that he hasn't seen for what seems to be forever, he finds, with a sinking feeling of fear, that the invisible string that keeps him rooted to the apartment is gone. There's no tug anymore, no feeling that tells him to _stay_ , where it's safe and where he could almost call home.

He makes it down several flights of stairs, and the feeling is still absent.

It's still completely devoid even when he stands in the streets, watching the cars go by in a blur of light and sound, and seeing the windows aglow with yellow and blue light in all the buildings that tower over him and stretch out further than his eyes can make out in a world that was larger than he ever remembered.

To him, it's terrifying.

He's going to lose himself in such a large world. He's going to get lost and be unable to make it back home.

The sudden terror overwhelms him and he flees back inside, running up the identical flights of stairs until he reaches the number that he remembers, slipping through the crack of the door and shutting it behind him, taking small comfort in the familiar click of the door locking. He doesn't even realize where he's going until he's standing outside Kasamatsu's room, his fingers brushing the handle.

He probably shouldn't go in. Kasamatsu's most likely sleeping right now.

But he opens the door anyway.

It takes his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness, and he closes the door quietly, stepping over to his bed.

"Kise?"

He startles - he didn't expect Kasamatsu to wake up this quickly.

"You're there, aren't you? Turn on the lamp, I can't see you properly."

Kise feels his way across the desk until his fingers find the lamp switch. The sudden burst of orange light blinds him temporarily, and when he blinks away the brightness, Kasamatsu is already sitting up, watching him carefully.

"Something wrong?"

He wants to say a lot of things, but he doesn't know sign language for to a lot of words still. _Scared_ , he signs hesitantly.

He hears a soft sigh from Kasamatsu in response. "Well, I'm not surprised. With everything that's going on ... you did well, holding up until now."

 _But it doesn't really make sense_. Kise looks up, catching Kasamatsu's eye. _Ghost_ , he signs back. _Dead. Shouldn't need to feel scared._

"That's not making any sense, Kise," Kasamatsu pats the space besides him, and Kise carefully makes his way over and sits down. "Sure, maybe you exist on a different side of the world than most people. But that doesn't change the fact that you can talk, think, and you can feel. As long as you're still able to feel and express the same emotions that I can, you're still able to feel scared, hurt, angry, all those things that you would have been able to feel when you were alive. And since you're able to feel, I don't want you to suffer. So don't think that your emotions don't matter just because you're different. You still feel emotions just like I do, just like everyone else does."

 

Kise makes a new discovery that night.

Ghosts can still cry.


	13. Thirteen

 

  
The bedroom door opens and Kasamatsu squints up. "Kise?" He rolls over and glances over at the familar yellow-haired figure. "You okay?"

_Don't you have school?_ Kise signs - or at least, that's what Kasamatsu thinks he's signing. Kasamatsu rubs at his eyes.

"It's Saturday, did you forget?" Kasamatsu sits up, stretching. "And the team was talking about wanting a break for a while so I cancelled today's practice. We don't have any major matches coming up anyway, and I was thinking about letting us rest for a bit."

Kise nods thoughtfully, wandering over to Kasamatsu's desk and sitting down on his chair. _The pull_ , Kise signs - or at least, Kasamatsu thinks that what he's signing. He hasn't seen the gesture before but it doesn't seem too hard to figure out. _It was gone_.

"Gone?"

Nodding, Kise signs, _I was able to go all the way outside just now. Didn't feel anything trying to hold me back_. He chews his lower lip. _It was weird. And scary._

Sighing, Kasamatsu rubs his hand over his face. "I wish I knew what all this _means_." He glances back up at Kise. "And you don't know what's happening either, right?"

Kise shakes his head, looking downcast.

"Don't worry," Kasamatsu stands eventually, offering a smile. "We'll get to the bottom of this at some point." He reaches over and ruffles Kise's hair, watching in amusement as the blonde swats his hand away and struggles to rearrange it. "I'm going out to get some more groceries, we've run out. Stay here for a bit, okay?"

He walks out, smiling to himself as Kise salutes him obediently.

 

 

Kasamatsu wonders whether he should try bringing Kise outside of the apartment from time to time - maybe other people would be able to see him too, or maybe he could try again to find help from some ghost medium or something. But people would have so many questions, and Kise was stressed enough as it was.

He's so lost in thought he ends up walking into another pedestrian a few blocks away from his apartment. Neither of them falls, but Kasamatsu says a hasty apology anyway.

The man he bumped into glances around him in confusion, his eyes passing right over, right _through_ Kasamatsu, unseeing. Appearing to shrug off the incident as his imagination, the man walks away, leaving Kasamatsu standing in the middle of the street, staring after him in bewilderment.

It's only then that he realizes that suddenly nobody in the streets seem to be seeing him, either. 

 

 

It seems to Kise that his mind is now fixed in a permanent state of confusion and doubt.

After all, nothing makes sense anymore and he makes new discoveries every day, but not the kind that he wants.

Like the fact that he can apparently use touchscreen phones now, for instance.

(But then again, this discovery is one of the less frightening ones. Almost amusing, really - Kise likes watching Kasamatsu's confused expression when he unlocks his phone and finds sixteen new games installed on his device without his knowledge.)

And the strange inability to knock on physical objects has now vanished, too. Kise discovered this by accident, when he tripped and fell headlong into the wall (again forgetting that he now couldn't phase through objects) which, to his surprise, ended up emitting a quiet, but clearly audible, thud.

He wonders what else will change.

Once again, he finds himself outside the apartment, watching as the cars rush by in blurs of colour and wind.

_What else has already changed without me knowing?_

Impulsively, he reaches out his hand into the road seconds before a bus honks and drives by, the pull from the tailwind of the vehicle tugging at his body. Before he can make the decision to snatch his hand back, the bus knocks his entire arm violently to the side, and he staggers sideways with the force of the blow. His hand feels like it's been crushed, but even as he holds it up in front of his face for a closer look, the pain subsides into a deep throbbing, then a slight tingle, then nothing.

He didn't know he could be hurt in this form.

The skin on his hand hasn't changed - it's still smooth and slightly transparent, but there's no blood or bruises or discoloring. Even now, only a few seconds after the impact, he's wondering whether he imagined the pain after all.

Maybe it might have been a memory.

He did feel it, after all - the moment of impact, the strangely familiar feeling of the cold, hard metal of a vehicle slamming into his body. It flashed in his mind briefly - the only real memory that he still had, of the accident, of blood and sirens and broken tarmac and the suddenness of death.

It does irk him sometimes - of all memories that could have stayed with him when he passed into this strange state, it _had_ to be his death.

And he remembers it so clearly, too. Down to every last tiny detail, the tiny pieces of gravel and shards of broken car windows digging into his cheek, the choking smoke that stifled his lungs while he struggled under the twisted, burning wreckage, the bright red stains that were left smeared over the ground when the paramedics finally managed to pull him out. The world had been so distorted then - the lights shook before his eyes and blurred together, flashes of the blue and red of the ambulance and the yellow of the streetlamp and the white and blue of the car lights that still flickered and stared, the voices of panicked pedestrians, of children crying, the victims screaming and sobbing and groaning, and the steady, muffled words of the paramedics that he couldn't understand, all broken and muted and mixing together in a loud buzz that sent waves of pain through his head. There was pain - so much pain, pain like he didn't know was possible - an agony that tore at his sides, his arms and legs, a constant ringing, piercing and sharp and unrelenting, stabbing through his skull repeatedly, and there was the blood, thick and warm and terrifyingly abundant, spilling from everywhere and releasing a sickening metallic smell that mixed with the acrid smoky air and threatened to suffocate him. 

The pain had seemed to fade, eventually - after lying paralyzed with agony on the ground, unable to respond as people passed overhead with shouted orders and bits of wreckage and medical equipment and words of comfort that went unheard, the agony subsided into a deep, rooted ache in his bones, a numbness that was even more terrifying than the pain, spreading and spreading until he couldn't tell whether he even had any limbs anymore, a cold, tingling, unfeeling kind of pain. The buzz of noise was drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears, the coppery, acidic stench in the air faded, and the flashing, blurry lights dimmed and went dark.

Kise doesn't like to remember it.

But there are things that people just aren't able to forget.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right when I've finished proofreading my completed chapters I'm beginning to have doubts about the ending I've given to my story :') I just kinda feel like it's anticlimatic, or it doesn't fit... @_@ should I try rewriting something else??? Would it be worth it?? Because I don't want to disappoint anyone with it, but I don't know what else I could write....


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